


The Transition

by Satyana



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: (kind of) Temporary Character Death, Alec Lightwood will be fine somehow, Angst and Feels, Heavy Angst with a hopeful ending, Hurt Alec Lightwood, M/M, Mentioning of Dying, Protective Magnus Bane, Soulmates, Transitioning, lots of emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29900406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satyana/pseuds/Satyana
Summary: Alec is dying, despite Magnus’ magic and Nephilim medicine. The demons got him bad and Alec looks down on his dying self. He knows he will have to leave his loved ones behind in their loss and their grief. At least that is what he believes when he steps into the light
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 22
Kudos: 39





	The Transition

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> First of all, yes, this fic might be triggering. So please read all the tags and warnings above.
> 
> But I promise, there is light at the end of the angsty tunnel. It really is.
> 
> So, feel free to try reading the following one-shot. I would be honored.
> 
> A biiig hug and many thanks to my awesome beta S_a_b_i_n_e  
> Please check out her works. It's so worth it! https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_a_b_i_n_e/
> 
> Now have a good time and a good day.
> 
> Lovely greetings, Satyana

He was told that shadowhunters would die young.

He was told that he would die mercifully. That it would be peaceful. That one would die gracefully. 

He should look at death as if it would be the greatest gift that a proud warrior like him could ever receive.

He was told that when their time has come, they would have nothing to fear. Nothing to regret. Nothing to lose.

But he is no longer youthful. No longer unattached. He is far away from being their prime example of a soldier. 

He has outgrown this image long ago. Instead, he is a responsible adult. A man with a civilian life and a family along.

Of course, there is a certain irony involved, flooding his reality which speaks a different language.

A reality that has another fiction within, telling about grief and helplessness. Of anger and loneliness. 

They speak of him as the protagonist, who will never get his rightful fairy tale with a perfect happy ending on the last page.

On the contrary. His book will end with a moral saying that one will always lose the game. His story will end in darkness, roasted like Hansel in an oven by a wicked witch. 

Nobody will be happy in his fable in which sadness rules as the crowned queen over the wide sea of tears with death as her captain.

They also said that dying would be easy. That dying would go fast. It would be painless.

He was lied to.

Through all these years, truth has been transfigured by the clave. Hidden in the dark. Concealed. A closed case. A cold case.

But he is figuring it out the hard way now. Their fraud. Their mendacity. Their falsehood.

On the worst day of his life, he has to realize that his life is built on a construct of lies.

Because for him, to die today means to struggle. To suffer. It means to feel unspeakable agony and pain.

And to die now is not his desire. Far from it.

He can’t just leave. Now that he has everything in front of him that he has ever dreamed of. 

He has a family to fight for. A beloved husband. Two beautiful boys to care for. Siblings, parents, friends. He has a perfect life that he doesn’t want to retire from.

But perfection seems to be at war with the life of a shadowhunter. A contrast that couldn’t be greater. Mountains would fit in this gap.

All that he has built up is trickling through his hands like sand. It seems as if his own hourglass has run out and the wind is tearing his sandy remains away, building dunes somewhere far away.

He won’t see Rafe’s heart-melting smile ever again. Nor will he feel Max’s radiating body heat while giving him a goodnight kiss. 

He will never feel his husband’s soft hands again, exploring every inch of his body. 

No longer can he seek comfort out of these fleeting moments of time. Times of feeling true and unconditional love. 

He has no chance to ever see his sister again, talking with hearts in her eyes while she reminisces about the latest day of her new life with Simon.

He won’t be there when Clary gives birth to her twins. Nor will he be there to witness how the chest of his parabatai will swell with pure pride because he is about to become a father.

He fights for all of this. 

He really is, now, standing beside his shell which is steadily getting colder and watches the spectacle around him, feeling that his body wants a clean finish. It longs for eternal peace. His body has fought enough battles, already given up. But his soul never will.

And yet, Alexander Gideon Lightwood-Bane is dying.

No one will ever be ready for their final day to come, especially not when one has to experience it firsthand, standing beside oneself. 

Seeing oneself dying an unmerciful death. Graceless.

Cut up, battered, bleeding to death.

There is no honor in that. No chance to hold onto the future. 

Leaving them behind can never be right.

Leaving _him_ behind. The man who changed everything. 

Alec peeks at Magnus who stands on his other side, constantly pumping his healing magic into him. He is tensed up. Beads of sweat are running down his temples, dripping onto his shoulders. Leaving a mark on the jacket that Alec loves so much on him. 

Magnus has portaled him to the infirmary after they had gotten into an ambush, clearly outnumbered, but in the end they were victorious. 

Just at what price?

He floats through his body on the stretcher towards Magnus, trying to hug him, failing miserably because his hands are finding no resistance. They cannot carefully wipe away Magnus' tears, nor are they giving the desired comfort. 

Alec presses his ghostly self against Magnus’ body, hoping for the best but getting paid off with the worst. He remains cold, shivering, scared. 

His lips cannot find Magnus' soft ones. His kiss sinks into the horrifying void. Not even a tiny eye-twitch of his golden shimmering cat-eyes which Alec admired right from the start. But instead, they reflect emotions which he never wanted to see there. It is breaking him, witnessing Magnus’ despair, his fear. His panic of losing the battle between life and death. The horrific thought of losing his soulmate.

Alec wants to ensure that everything will be okay, well-knowing that it would be a lie too. And Magnus doesn’t deserve them. Even if it is too tempting in the current situation, standing closely on the precipice. Shortly before he will fall into the depths. A bungee jump without a rescue rope. His crash will be the end of all.

An icy fog is slowly spreading across the room the moment he turns to himself again.

He wants to crawl back inside, hiding there, but a magical force denies him entrance, locking him out. It rather pushes Alec further away.

Meanwhile, countless people scurry around him, through him. He tries to reach out to them, but no one registers him. 

It gets louder, more hectic. Medics are shouting, gesturing, hurrying around the monitors that are built up around his body. 

His husband's panicked screams that Cat should finally be called. His kohl has long turned into a black stream down his cheeks.

Alec senses a great urge to grab his neck, clearing his throat silently. He can feel how he has trouble to breathe properly, how his lungs refuse to work correctly. His blood cannot transport the much-needed oxygen to his organs any longer.

He holds his nonexistent breath and looks in horror at his body which is being heavily worked on. His pupils are dilated. 

He doesn’t want to see what’s coming, but he knows that he has to. His mind must understand it, accepting the inevitable.

The moment his body stops breathing, the room sinks into chaos, overflooded by even more people running wildly around like ants.

They intubate him, innumerable IVs are set. A nurse shreds impatiently his shirt to have better access to start the preparations for the defibrillator.

Magnus can only be torn away by the combined strength of Jace and Izzy, giving the medical team the much needed space to shock Alec’s heart, trying their best to save him.

But his husband smashes his two human chains directly against the wall and runs back to Alec’s head, unleashing his healing and hope-giving magic. His face mimics his thoughts, grimacing them out. It is distorted, petrified, frozen in time.

After the unsuccessful second shock, Alec is injected adrenaline, hoping this will restart his still heart. 

His body shoots up a third time, only powered by the electric force that is pressed into his body but his body itself remains motionless, still. As if he’s sleeping, waiting for a kiss from his prince in shining armor. But nothing will awaken him from his nightmare.

The monitor that should roar Alec’s life-affirming heart rate remains monotonous, showing a devastating flatline. 

Technology doesn’t lie, always showing reality. In all its brutality. 

Lying is a human quality. Just like dying.

Alec floats to the screen and observes the line for a while, fascinated by how it peacefully flows from one side to the other. 

The screams around him are ringing in his ears. There are people crying, pleading, collapsing in their individual pains. 

But Alec stays muted, unable to voice what’s on his mind. He can’t show them how he feels or that he is still here, reaching out for them. That he is terrified, traumatized. That he doesn’t want to go. He hates being forced to be passive. Doomed to wait for what is yet to come.

He registers how Izzy and Jace lean over Magnus to shield him from the outer world, respectfully giving him time to process, to mourn, to sob. He leans his head against Alec’s and kisses his forehead while gently caressing Alec's temples with his thumbs. 

Tears are falling down, are landing on Alec's eyelashes, running down his already cold cheeks. It almost looks as if he is grieving for his own death. 

Magnus’ arms wander carefully along the head towards the neck and then to his upper body. Gentle touches quickly transition into shaking his chest, rocking it furiously. But Magnus won’t get a reaction. Never again.

Like a fury, his parabatai throws the defibrillator towards the heart monitor, unable to endure the monotonous noise even a second longer but misses miserably. Failing again, like he did in the attack where he couldn’t save his brother. His mind has shut down long ago, protecting him from the emotional and physical pain. Jace will never comprehend what is going to happen today. That he has to let his beloved brother go, defeated by the greatest enemy he has ever fought against. 

Because in the end, death will always prevail. It always has the last word, is the author of the greatest masterpieces. A perfectionist in dramas, rewriting the stories as it pleases.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Alec notices a cone of brilliant light, shining from a source that only he can see. He has to pinch his eyes to shield them from its brightness.

It’s time for him.

His gaze pans to his loved ones one last time and gets stuck at his great love, cherishing their last moment together.

He closes his eyes and lets himself get carried away to the glow calling him to begin his transition, being glad that he doesn’t have to witness any longer how his bereaved have to suffer. How much they mourn.

Alec can’t stand watching how Magnus is screaming in agony. 

He can’t stand the thought that his death will leave a lesion within his husband’s heart for it’s too precious to get marked like this. Magnus doesn’t deserve an open wound that may never heal. He shouldn’t suffer for something that is Alec’s fault. He didn't pay enough attention for a moment and so he couldn't spot the two demons that were creeping up from behind.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. 

The light is calling him and he steps through. Once being there, he is sure that he will forget everything, closing his eyes forever.

But for Magnus the fight is not over. 

He doesn’t accept a shattered world. He can’t imagine a life without his true love - his soulmate - for whom he waited more than 400 years. Seeing his husband die overwhelms him.

And he just lets it transpire when his dark side awakens and tries to break free. His inner demon tears at its chains and melts them down, freeing itself and flooding his body with pure demonic power of a Prince of Hell who draws its energy directly from Edom.

Magnus offers no resistance and surrenders his body and his human side voluntarily into its powerful hands.

His body begins to glow ominously red and like fire flickering veins litter his skin. His eyes sparkle, looking angrily down at the lifeless body in front of him.

All his emotions, all the pain and grief that he’s feeling right now, bundle and penetrate to the outside, forming a shimmering cocoon that throws both shadowhunters forcefully to the ground.

He pushes himself up, unfolding to his newly full height. A torrent of misty red magic wafts towards Alec’s cold body.

He places both hands over Alec’s chest and blazing flames infiltrate through his skin, deep into his body.

The room falls silent. All eyes are fixed on Magnus who is in a deep state of concentration. No one dares to breathe and the silence is only broken by the monitors that are still attached to Alec's body, playing the siren of death.

Magnus’ magic acts independently, gathering in and around Alec’s heart. Then it compresses and explodes in a glaring light that keeps nothing nor anyone on their feet.

….

When Magnus opens his eyes again and looks through the gaping hole in the ceiling, he sees a bright blue sky. The sun is shining and he has to hold a hand in front of his sensitive eyes so that he isn’t blinded.

He brushes the dust off his clothes and lets his gaze wander. The cloud of destruction continues to trickle, covering the now empty operating table with a powdery layer of dust. 

It looks peaceful, almost as if it is snowing.

Little by little, everyone else in the room wakes up and starts checking for the other people in the room, the familiar circle that gives them security. 

But someone is missing, a loved one.

Just Magnus can breathe again and smiles freely because he knows. He can feel a new bud awakening deep within his heart and it is growing.

And when it blossoms, it will be time to set out. 

Then it is time to start his search for him.

He knows that he has time on his side, with eternity as his ally.

….

The same sun illuminates a different scene somewhere in the northern hemisphere.

A woman screams, presses, writhes. Her arms embrace an armrest in front of her. 

She has been fighting for hours.

With the last of her remaining strength, she can finally hold her long-awaited baby in her arms.

She hugs it tightly, feeling its strong heartbeat, hearing its first substantial scream. She kisses the forehead in bliss.

“My baby boy. You will always be loved, my beautiful Alexander.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading.
> 
> I really you enjoyed the ride. 
> 
> Feel free to send me kudos or leave a comment.
> 
> Have a nice day and lots of hugs :)


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